A few years ago, a reporter in Columbia, South Carolina asked local elementary school children why America celebrates the Fourth of July.

Most of the answers were predictably personal. To eat hot dogs, said one boy. To watch fireworks, a girl answered.  Another child thought we all celebrated the Fourth of July because it was his brother’s birthday.

One student, a fifth grader from Nursery Road Elementary School named Vante Lee, gave a different answer. “We celebrate the 4th of July,” he said, “because we celebrate our freedom and the chance to make our own decisions.”

When you were nine, which child’s answer would yours have resembled?

(This article originally appeared in Education Week.)

Want to imagine a different path to improving public education in this country? Take my 15-minute challenge.

First, find a partner. Then, take four minutes to reflect and write silently on your most meaningful personal experience in a learning community. It could be a club, a church group, a school, a course, or something else. The only criteria are that it was a transformative experience, and that real learning occurred.

(Originally appearing in the Huffington Post.)

With $100 billion to spend in the next two years, the Obama administration means business when it talks about reshaping the public education system. Why, then, is it ignoring some of the business community’s best insights when it comes to core questions of how to spark systems change?

There’s a disconnect between what the administration is promising – a set of voluntary national content standards – and what we the people will receive – a standardization of the public school system.

A few years ago, I was asked to be a plenary speaker at a conference of legal and educational scholars. In my typical fashion, I decided to give a speech that was designed to provoke. I had heard enough discussions about the differences in life chances between White and Black children, and between White children and the ever more visible Latina/o youth. I was especially tired of the “achievement gap” talk that far too often resulted in conversations about more tests, more short cuts to teacher preparation, and more charter schools (often via private corporation takeovers). I needed an audience that would get mad enough to look at the ugly reality of what is happening to too many children in this country.

Thanks to Libby Quaid of the Associated Press for taking the time to sort out the facts behind the myth-making that goes on around our public schools.  While she points out that our schools could do better—no kidding, that’s why my staff and I put in so many hours on behalf of our kids and community—she makes it clear that the facts do not support many of the claims about our schools.

I’ll leave it to you to read her analysis, but a few highlights—

What I appreciate about Chester Finn is that he always has some good points to make. But Finn makes one good point and several questionable and fallacious ones in his Washington Post Op-Ed, “Slow the Preschool Bandwagon” (May 15, 2009). The good point is that it would help at-risk children and their families to have intensive support from birth to age five. When this was done in North Carolina’s Abecedarian Project, I.Q. scores rose, special education placement rates fell from 48 percent to 25 percent, and grade retention declined from 55 percent to 31 percent.

It was no real surprise when the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress numbers pointed out that, after untold millions of dollars invested in NCLB, the achievement gap between white and minority students is not closing.  Since the law’s passage the single-minded focus on standardized test scores has done little to improve our schools.  Rather, ideologically driven curriculum reforms such as Reading First and a lack of attention to supports that would genuinely improve our schools has led to changes that have had little positive effect on students and children.

April 30, 2009 – (Washington, DC) –The Forum for Education and Democracy today announced that over 10,000 petitioners – more than 100 per day since President Barack Obama took the oath of office – have united to challenge the administration to prioritize four core principles that can guide its ambitious education reform efforts.  Petitioners signed onto www.willwereally.com, where they also shared personal stories of effective learning experiences – and demanded that the country’s school system be aligned to ensure that every child in America can tell a similar story.  

In his recent Ed Week commentary, Ron Wolk has once again given us reason to admire his stamina and longevity, and his ability to see the forest through the trees. His intellect and presence have provided a common sense orientation for several generations of educators and policy makers. In this latest essay, he couples each of the faulty assumptions he identifies with clear reminders about how young people really learn, how teachers grow and thrive, and how the easy appeal of certain slogans and goals has led us away from the pragmatic solutions we must pursue now more than ever.